Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 - Press Release Announcement Address by Anders Österling, Member of the Swedish Academy This year the Nobel Prize in Literature has been granted by the Swedish Academy to the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age. It will be recalled that the laureate has made it known that he did not wish to accept the prize. The fact that he has declined this distinction does not in the least modify the validity of the award. Under the circumstances, however, the Academy can only state that the presentation of the prize cannot take place. Refusal In a public announcement, printed in Le Figaro of October 23, 1964, Mr. Sartre expressed his regret that his refusal of the prize had given rise to scandal, and wished it to be known that, unaware of the irrevocability of the Swedish Academy's decisions, he had sought by letter to prevent their choice falling upon him. In this letter, he specified that his refusal was not meant to slight the Swedish Academy but was rather based on personal and objective reasons of his own.

As to personal reasons, Mr. Sartre pointed out that due to his conception of the writer's task he had always declined official honours and thus his present act was not unprecedented. He had similarly refused membership in the Legion of Honour and had not desired to enter the Collège de France, and he would refuse the Lenin Prize if it were offered to him. He stated that a writer's accepting such an honour would be to associate his personal commitments with the awarding institution, and that, above all, a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution. Among his objective reasons, Mr. Sartre listed his belief that interchange between East and West must take place between men and between cultures without the intervention of institutions. Furthermore, since the conferment of past prizes did not, in his opinion, represent equally writers of all ideologies and nations, he felt that his acceptance might be undesirably and unjustly interpreted. Mr. Sartre closed his remarks with a message of affection for the Swedish public. At the banquet, S. Friberg, Rector of the Caroline Institute , made the following remarks: "Mr. Sartre found himself unable to accept this year's Prize in Literature.

There is always discussion about this prize, which every one considers himself capable of judging, or which he does not understand and consequently criticizes. But I believe that Nobel would have had a great understanding of this year's choice. The betterment of the world is the dream of every generation, and this applies particularly to the true poet and scientist. This was Nobel's dream. This is one measure of the scientist's significance. And this is the source and strength of Sartre's inspiration. As an author and philosopher, Sartre has been a central figure in postwar literary and intellectual discussion - admired, debated, criticized. His explosive production, in its entirety, has the impress of a message; it has been sustained by a profoundly serious endeavour to improve the reader, the world at large. The philosophy, which his writings have served, has been hailed by youth as a liberation.

Sartre's existentialism may be understood in the sense that the degree of happiness which an individual can hope to attain is governed by his willingness to take his stand in accordance with his ethos and to accept the consequences thereof; this is a more austere interpretation of a philosophy admirably expressed by Nobel's contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson: 'Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.'" The quality of human life depends not only on external conditions but also on individual happiness.

In our age of standardization and complex social systems, awareness of the meaning of life for the individual has perhaps not been lost, but it has certainly been dulled; and it is as urgent for us today as it was in Nobel's time to uphold the ideals which were his." From Nobel Lectures , Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature: Why Jean-Paul Sartre Refused the Controversial Award in 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature: Why Jean-Paul Sartre Refused the Controversial Award in 1964 Lydia Smith French writer and existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) More The literary Nobel Prize has had a history steeped in controversy since it was first awarded in 1901. But perhaps no other year has been more interesting than 1964, when Jean-Paul Sartre discovered he was among the writers being considered for the laureate.

A French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, literary critic and political activist, Sartre was one of the leading figures in French philosophy of the 20th century, and the driving force behind the school of reasoning known as existentialism. When rumours began circulating that he was in the running for the prize, Sartre immediately wrote to the Swedish Academy to inform them he wanted to be withdrawn from consideration. Unaware that no consultation made between the academy and nominees, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work "rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth". He refused it, citing both personal and objective reasons in a statement made to the Swedish Press on 22 October. But why did Sartre refuse the literary Nobel? Personal Assuring the press that his decision was not an "impulsive gesture", one of the reasons Sartre gave for rejecting the prize stemmed from his habit of refusing all official honours. In 1939, Sartre was drafted into the French army where he served as a meteorologist, before being captured by German trooped in Padoux in 1940.

He spent nine months as a prisoner of war, and in 1945, he was offered the Legion of Honour – and refused it. Sartre believed every individual is responsible for creating a purpose for their life. By accepting the prize, Sartre would inadvertently associate himself with the institution that honoured him. His humble conception of the writer's "enterprise" – as he called it in his explanation – led Sartre to believe that those in political, social or literary positions should only "act with the means that are his own – the written word". "The writer must therefore refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honourable circumstances, as in the present case," he said. "This attitude is of course entirely my own, and contains no criticism of those who have already been awarded the prize." It is evident that he wanted to accept no award that would add weight to his name. "If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner," he said. Beyond disputes over which contributor's work was worthier, countless other authors have criticised or dismissed the prize for personal reasons.

Haruki Murakami, one of the writers tipped to win this year's prize and a long-term favourite, previously laughed off the possibility of winning the coveted award saying he didn't want prizes – as "that means you're finished". Cold War politics and objectives After the Second World War, the second period of Sartre's career involved highly publicised political involvement – when the world was split into communist and capitalist blocks. Sartre embraced Marxism but did not join the Communist Party. As one of the first French journalists to expose the use of Siberian labour camps, he attacked what he saw as abuses of freedom and human rights by the Soviet Union. Sartre cited his conflicted loyalties between the East and the West as another reason why he declined the Nobel. Although sympathetic to socialism and the Eastern bloc, he had been brought up in a Western "bourgeois family" - and accepting the award would inevitably mean he had been "institutionalised in either East or West". At the time, Sartre said he regarded the prize as a "distinction reserved for the writers of the West or the rebels of the East".

"This is why I cannot accept an honour awarded by cultural authorities, those of the West any more than those of the East, even if I am sympathetic to their existence. Although all my sympathies are on the socialist side. I should thus be quite as unable to accept, for example, the Lenin Prize, if someone wanted to give it to me, which is not the case." Controversies Although Sartre openly said he regretted the incident had become a "scandal" – the writer was not the first, and certainly was not the last, to snub the prize for political reasons. Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was nominated several times, but never won the prize. Some observed that Borges was omitted because of his conservative political views – specifically, because he had accepted an honour from Chilean dictatorship Augusto Pinochet. Read More Borges' failure to win the prize contrasts significantly with writers who openly supported left-wing dictatorships – as was the case with Sartre. Between 1901 and 1912, Sweden's antipathy towards Russia was cited as the reason neither Tolstoy nor Anton Chekov were awarded the prize.

During the Second World War, the Academy favoured writers from non-combatant countries. The heavy focus on European authors has been a subject of mounting criticism, as the majority of laureates have been European. In 2008, Horace Engdahl, the former secretary of the Academy claimed that Europe was still the "centre of the literary world". "The US is too isolated, too insular," he said. "They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature." Jean-Paul Sartre refuses Nobel Prize: from the archive, 23 October 1964 | From the Guardian | The Guardian From the Guardian archive From the archive, 23 October 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre refuses Nobel Prize The Swedish Academy awards the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature to Jean-Paul Sartre, disregarding a decision by the French writer not to accept the prize 10 December 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (centre) dining in Paris with Simone de Beauvoir (right) and filmmaker Claude Lanzmann as the Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm.

Photograph: Bettmann/CORBIS From the Guardian archive From the archive, 23 October 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre refuses Nobel Prize The Swedish Academy awards the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature to Jean-Paul Sartre, disregarding a decision by the French writer not to accept the prize From our correspondent Close STOCKHOLM, OCTOBER 22 The Swedish Academy today awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature to Jean-Paul Sartre , disregarding a decision by the French writer not to accept the prize. This is the second time in 63 years that the winner for literature has refused to collect his award – and never before has a "possible" winner told the academy in advance that he does not want the prize. In 1958 the Russian author, Boris Pasternak, after accepting the prize later had to inform the academy that he did not want the award. In 1925 Bernard Shaw first refused the honour and the money, but later changed his mind and came to Stockholm to receive the prize. This year's prize of about £18,000 will probably go back to the Nobel foundation.

The academy met for two hours this morning to discuss the situation after receiving a letter from Sartre saying that for "personal reasons" he could not accept the award. But the academy stuck to its earlier decision. The prize was awarded, said the academy, for "his imaginative writing which by reason of its spirit and freedom and striving for truth has exercised a far-reaching influence on our age." Sartre, aged 59, who was in Paris when he heard the news, confirmed later that he will not come to Stockholm to receive the prize on December 10. French opinion seems to be divided into two blocks over this refusal by the "Father of existentialism." One defends Sartre and the other expresses sorrow for the loss of prestige. A very fair lady indeed NEW YORK, OCTOBER 22 Eliza Doolittle who in her triumphal progress from New York to London to Prague to Tokio must have been made into more national stereotypes than any other stage heroine in history, achieved her final Platonic form last night in the heavenly person of Miss Audrey Hepburn. She is as sensitive as a nerve-end to the slighted female whom Higgins and Pickering are handling like litmus paper.

We went out of the theatre reeling against the stupidity of what had always seemed to be Ibsen's fair comment on Shaw: "Shaw? The man who left emotion out of drama." Ibsen, I guess, never knew Audrey Hepburn. Alastair Cooke Nobel Prize in Literature: Why Jean-Paul Sartre Refused the Controversial Award in 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature: Why Jean-Paul Sartre Refused the Controversial Award in 1964 October 9, 2014 11:14 BST French writer and existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980)Getty The literary Nobel Prize has had a history steeped in controversy since it was first awarded in 1901. But perhaps no other year has been more interesting than 1964, when Jean-Paul Sartre discovered he was among the writers being considered for the laureate.

A French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, literary critic and political activist, Sartre was one of the leading figures in French philosophy of the 20th century, and the driving force behind the school of reasoning known as existentialism. When rumours began circulating that he was in the running for the prize, Sartre immediately wrote to the Swedish Academy to inform them he wanted to be withdrawn from consideration. Unaware that no consultation made between the academy and nominees, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work "rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth". He refused it, citing both personal and objective reasons in a statement made to the Swedish Press on 22 October. But why did Sartre refuse the literary Nobel? Personal Assuring the press that his decision was not an "impulsive gesture", one of the reasons Sartre gave for rejecting the prize stemmed from his habit of refusing all official honours. In 1939, Sartre was drafted into the French army where he served as a meteorologist, before being captured by German trooped in Padoux in 1940.

He spent nine months as a prisoner of war, and in 1945, he was offered the Legion of Honour – and refused it. Sartre believed every individual is responsible for creating a purpose for their life. By accepting the prize, Sartre would inadvertently associate himself with the institution that honoured him. His humble conception of the writer's "enterprise" – as he called it in his explanation – led Sartre to believe that those in political, social or literary positions should only "act with the means that are his own – the written word". "The writer must therefore refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honourable circumstances, as in the present case," he said. "This attitude is of course entirely my own, and contains no criticism of those who have already been awarded the prize." It is evident that he wanted to accept no award that would add weight to his name. "If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner," he said. Beyond disputes over which contributor's work was worthier, countless other authors have criticised or dismissed the prize for personal reasons.

Haruki Murakami, one of the writers tipped to win this year's prize and a long-term favourite, previously laughed off the possibility of winning the coveted award saying he didn't want prizes – as "that means you're finished". Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir leaving the Palais de Justice in Paris in 1970Getty/AFP Cold War politics and objectives After the Second World War, the second period of Sartre's career involved highly publicised political involvement – when the world was split into communist and capitalist blocks. Sartre embraced Marxism but did not join the Communist Party. As one of the first French journalists to expose the use of Siberian labour camps, he attacked what he saw as abuses of freedom and human rights by the Soviet Union. Sartre cited his conflicted loyalties between the East and the West as another reason why he declined the Nobel. Although sympathetic to socialism and the Eastern bloc, he had been brought up in a Western "bourgeois family" - and accepting the award would inevitably mean he had been "institutionalised in either East or West".

At the time, Sartre said he regarded the prize as a "distinction reserved for the writers of the West or the rebels of the East". "This is why I cannot accept an honour awarded by cultural authorities, those of the West any more than those of the East, even if I am sympathetic to their existence. Although all my sympathies are on the socialist side. I should thus be quite as unable to accept, for example, the Lenin Prize, if someone wanted to give it to me, which is not the case." Controversies Although Sartre openly said he regretted the incident had become a "scandal" – the writer was not the first, and certainly was not the last, to snub the prize for political reasons. Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was nominated several times, but never won the prize. Some observed that Borges was omitted because of his conservative political views – specifically, because he had accepted an honour from Chilean dictatorship Augusto Pinochet. Borges' failure to win the prize contrasts significantly with writers who openly supported left-wing dictatorships – as was the case with Sartre.

Between 1901 and 1912, Sweden's antipathy towards Russia was cited as the reason neither Tolstoy nor Anton Chekov were awarded the prize. During the Second World War, the Academy favoured writers from non-combatant countries. The heavy focus on European authors has been a subject of mounting criticism, as the majority of laureates have been European. In 2008, Horace Engdahl, the former secretary of the Academy claimed that Europe was still the "centre of the literary world". "The US is too isolated, too insular," he said. "They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature." Related Sartre on the Nobel Prize | by Jean-Paul Sartre | The New York Review of Books Sartre on the Nobel Prize December 17, 1964 Issue Jean-Paul Sartre explained his refusal to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in a statement made to the Swedish Press on October 22, which appeared in Le Monde in a French translation approved by Sartre. The following translation into English was made by Richard Howard.

Jean-Paul Sartre; drawing by David Levine I deeply regret the fact that the incident has become something of a scandal: a prize was awarded, and I refused it. It happened entirely because I was not informed soon enough of what was under way. When I read in the October 15 Figaro littéraire, in the Swedish correspondent’s column, that the choice of the Swedish Academy was tending toward me, but that it had not yet been determined, I supposed that by writing a letter to the Academy, which I sent off the following day, I could make matters clear and that there would be no further discussion. I was not aware at the time that the Nobel Prize is awarded without consulting the opinion of the recipient, and I believed there was time to prevent this from happening. But I now understand that when the Swedish Academy has made a decision it cannot subsequently revoke it. My reasons for refusing the prize concern neither the Swedish Academy nor the Nobel Prize in itself, as I explained in my letter to the Academy. In it, I alluded to two kinds of reasons: personal and objective. The personal reasons are these: my refusal is not an impulsive gesture, I have always declined official honors.

In 1945, after the war, when I was offered the Legion of Honor, I refused it, although I was sympathetic to the government. Similarly, I have never sought to enter the Collège de France, as several of my friends suggested. This attitude is based on my conception of the writer’s enterprise. A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own—that is, the written word. All the honors he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner. The writer who accepts an honor of this kind involves as well as himself the association or institution which has honored him. My sympathies for the Venezuelan revolutionists commit only myself, while if Jean-Paul Sartre the Nobel laureate champions the Venezuelan resistance, he also commits the entire Nobel Prize as an institution. The writer must therefore refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honorable circumstances, as in the present case.

This attitude is of course entirely my own, and contains no criticism of those who have already been awarded the prize. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for several of the laureates whom I have the honor to know. My objective reasons are as follows: The only battle possible today on the cultural front is the battle for the peaceful coexistence of the two cultures, that of the East and that of the West. I do not mean that they must embrace each other—I know that the confrontation of these two cultures must necessarily take the form of a conflict—but this confrontation must occur between men and between cultures, without the intervention of institutions. I myself am deeply affected by the contradiction between the two cultures: I am made up of such contradictions. My sympathies undeniably go to socialism and to what is called the Eastern bloc, but I was born and brought up in a bourgeois family and a bourgeois culture. This permits me to collaborate with all those who seek to bring the two cultures closer together. I nonetheless hope, of course, that “the best man wins.” That is, socialism. This is why I cannot accept an honor awarded by cultural authorities, those of the West any more than those of the East, even if I am sympathetic to their existence.

Although all my sympathies are on the socialist side. I should thus be quite as unable to accept, for example, the Lenin Prize, if someone wanted to give it to me, which is not the case. I know that the Nobel Prize in itself is not a literary prize of the Western bloc, but it is what is made of it, and events may occur which are outside the province of the members of the Swedish Academy. This is why, in the present situation, the Nobel Prize stands objectively as a distinction reserved for the writers of the West or the rebels of the East. It has not been awarded, for example, to Neruda, who is one of the greatest South American poets. There has never been serious question of giving it to Louis Aragon, though he certainly deserves it. It is regrettable that the prize was given to Pasternak and not to Sholokhov, and that the only Soviet work thus honored should be one published abroad and banned in its own country. A balance might have been established by a similar gesture in the other direction.

During the war in Algeria, when we had signed the “declaration of the 121,” I should have gratefully accepted the prize, because it would have honored not only me, but also the freedom for which we were fighting. But matters did not turn out that way, and it is only after the battle is over that the prize has been awarded me. In discussing the motives of the Swedish Academy, mention has been made of freedom, a word that suggests many interpretations. In the West, only a general freedom is meant: personally, I mean a more concrete freedom which consists of the right to have more than one pair of shoes and to eat one’s fill. It seems to me less dangerous to decline the prize than to accept it. If I accept it, I offer myself to what I shall call “an objective rehabilitation.” According to the Figaro littéraire article, “a controversial political past would not be held against me.” I know that this article does not express the opinion of the Academy, but it clearly shows how my acceptance would be interpreted by certain rightist circles. I consider this “controversial political past” as still valid, even if I am quite prepared to acknowledge to my comrades certain past errors.

I do not thereby mean that the Nobel Prize is a “bourgeois” prize, but such is the bourgeois interpretation which would inevitably be given by certain circles with which I am very familiar. Lastly, I come to the question of the money: it is a very heavy burden that the Academy imposes upon the laureate by accompanying its homage with an enormous sum, and this problem has tortured me. Either one accepts the prize and with the prize money can support organizations or movements one considers important—my own thoughts went to the Apartheid committee in London. Or else one declines the prize on generous principles, and thereby deprives such a movement of badly needed support. But I believe this to be a false problem. I obviously renounce the 250,000 crowns because I do not wish to be institutionalized in either East or West. But one cannot be asked on the other hand to renounce, for 250,000 crowns, principles which are not only one’s own, but are shared by all one’s comrades. That is what has made so painful for me both the awarding of the prize and the refusal of it I am obliged to make.

I wish to end this declaration with a message of fellow-feeling for the Swedish public. Jean-Paul Sartre: more relevant now than ever | Books | The Guardian Philosophy Jean-Paul Sartre: more relevant now than ever Fifty years ago, Jean-Paul Sartre refused the Nobel prize for literature. His reputation has waned, but his intellectual struggle is still pertinent Cafe society: French philosopher-writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Photograph: David E Scherman/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Share on Messenger Close In this age in which all shall have prizes, in which every winning author knows what’s necessary in the post-award trial-by-photoshoot (Book jacket pressed to chest? Check. Wall-to-wall media? Check. Backdrop of sponsor’s logo? Check) and in which scarcely anyone has the couilles, as they say in France, to politely tell judges where they can put their prize, how lovely to recall what happened on 22 October 1964, when Jean-Paul Sartre turned down the Nobel prize for literature. “I have always declined official honours,” he explained at the time . “A writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.

This attitude is based on my conception of the writer’s enterprise. A writer who adopts political, social or literary positions must act only within the means that are his own – that is, the written word.” Throughout his life, Sartre agonised about the purpose of literature. In 1947’s What is Literature? , he jettisoned a sacred notion of literature as capable of replacing outmoded religious beliefs in favour of the view that it should have a committed social function. However, the last pages of his enduringly brilliant memoir Words , published the same year as the Nobel refusal, despair over that function: “For a long time I looked on my pen as a sword; now I know how powerless we are.” Poetry, wrote Auden, makes nothing happen ; politically committed literature, Sartre was saying, was no better. In rejecting the honour, Sartre worried that the Nobel was reserved for “the writers of the west or the rebels of the east”.

He didn’t damn the Nobel in quite the bracing terms that led Hari Kunzru to decline the 2003 John Llewellyn Rhys prize , sponsored by the Mail on Sunday (“As the child of an immigrant, I am only too aware of the poisonous effect of the Mail’s editorial line”), but gently pointed out its Eurocentric shortcomings. Plus, one might say 50 years on, ça change. Sartre said that he might have accepted the Nobel if it had been offered to him during France’s imperial war in Algeria, which he vehemently opposed, because then the award would have helped in the struggle, rather than making Sartre into a brand, an institution, a depoliticised commodity. Truly, it’s difficult not to respect his compunctions. But the story is odder than that. Sartre read in Figaro Littéraire that he was in the frame for the award, so he wrote to the Swedish Academy saying he didn’t want the honour. He was offered it anyway. “I was not aware at the time that the Nobel prize is awarded without consulting the opinion of the recipient,” he said.

“But I now understand that when the Swedish Academy has made a decision, it cannot subsequently revoke it.” Regrets? Sartre had a few – at least about the money. His principled stand cost him 250,000 kronor (about £21,000), prize money that, he reflected in his refusal statement, he could have donated to the “apartheid committee in London” who badly needed support at the time. All of which makes one wonder what his compatriot, Patrick Modiano, the 15th Frenchman to win the Nobel for literature earlier this month, did with his 8m kronor (about £700,000). The Swedish Academy had selected Sartre for having “exerted a far-reaching influence on our age”. Is this still the case? Though he was lionised by student radicals in Paris in May 1968, his reputation as a philosopher was on the wane even then. His brand of existentialism had been eclipsed by structuralists (such as Lévi-Strauss and Althusser) and post-structuralists (such as Derrida and Deleuze).

Indeed, Derrida would spend a great deal of effort deriding Sartrean existentialism as a misconstrual of Heidegger . Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy, with the notable exception of Iris Murdoch and Arthur Danto, has for the most part been sniffy about Sartre’s philosophical credentials. Sartre’s later reputation probably hasn’t benefited from being championed by Paris’s philosophical lightweight, Bernard-Henri Lévy , who subtitled his biography of his hero The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century (Really? Not Heidegger, Russell, Wittgenstein or Adorno?); still less by his appearance in Monty Python’s least funny philosophy sketch , “Mrs Premise and Mrs Conclusion visit Jean-Paul Sartre at his Paris home”. Sartre has become more risible than lisible: unremittingly depicted as laughable philosopher toad – ugly, randy, incomprehensible, forever excitably over-caffeinated at Les Deux Magots with Simone de Beauvoir , encircled with pipe smoke and mired in philosophical jargon, not so much a man as a stock pantomime figure. He deserves better.

How then should we approach Sartre’s writings in 2014? So much of his lifelong intellectual struggle and his work still seems pertinent. When we read the “Bad Faith” section of Being and Nothingness , it is hard not to be struck by the image of the waiter who is too ingratiating and mannered in his gestures, and how that image pertains to the dismal drama of inauthentic self-performance that we find in our culture today. When we watch his play Huis Clos , we might well think of how disastrous our relations with other people are, since we now require them, more than anything else, to confirm our self-images, while they, no less vexingly, chiefly need us to confirm theirs. When we read his claim that humans can, through imagination and action, change our destiny, we feel something of the burden of responsibility of choice that makes us moral beings. True, when we read such sentences as “the being by which Nothingness comes to the world must be its own Nothingness”, we might want to retreat to a dark room for a good cry, but let’s not spoil the story. His lifelong commitments to socialism, anti-fascism and anti-imperialism still resonate.

When we read, in his novel Nausea , of the protagonost Antoine Roquentin in Bouville’s art gallery, looking at pictures of self-satisfied local worthies, we can apply his fury at their subjects’ self-entitlement to today’s images of the powers that be (the suppressed photo, for example, of Cameron and his cronies in Bullingdon pomp), and share his disgust that such men know nothing of what the world is really like in all its absurd contingency. In his short story Intimacy, we confront a character who, like all of us on occasion, is afraid of the burden of freedom and does everything possible to make others take her decisions for her. When we read his distinctions between being-in-itself (être-en-soi), being-for-itself (être-pour-soi) and being-for-others (être-pour-autrui), we are encouraged to think about the tragicomic nature of what it is to be human – a longing for full control over one’s destiny and for absolute identity, and at the same time, a realisation of the futility of that wish.

The existential plight of humanity, our absurd lot, our moral and political responsibilities that Sartre so brilliantly identified have not gone away; rather, we have chosen the easy path of ignoring them. That is not a surprise: for Sartre, such refusal to accept what it is to be human was overwhelmingly, paradoxically, what humans do. The Swedish Academy, then, was hardly wrong to give the 1964 literature prize to the now-neglected philosopher writer: he was as great a writer and thinker as its members then recognised. It would just have been nice if they’d checked with Sartre first. Jean-Paul Sartre - Documentary Jean-Paul Sartre The Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 Jean-Paul Sartre Share this: Documentary The 59-year-old author Jean-Paul Sartre declined the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he was awarded in October 1964. He said he always refused official distinctions and did not want to be "institutionalised". M. Sartre was interviewed by journalists outside the Paris flat of his friend Simone de Beauvoir, authoress and playwright.

He also told the press he rejected the Nobel Prize for fear that it would limit the impact of his writing. He also expressed regrets that circumstances had given his decision "the appearance of a scandal". See a Video of the Event No sound 52 sec. Saying 'No' to Nobel: Sartre's famous refusal turns 50 Saying 'No' to Nobel: Sartre's famous refusal turns 50 Hugues HONORE Pin it Share French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, pictured in Paris on February 15, 1971, was the first person to turn down a Nobel Prize (AFP Photo/) More Stockholm (AFP) - What brings more fame than accepting the Nobel Prize? Not accepting it -- as Jean-Paul Sartre showed with a celebrated "non" to the world's most prestigious award exactly 50 years ago. When the Swedish Academy made the announcement on October 22, 1964 that the French philosopher had won the prize for literature, he was lunching at a restaurant near the Parisian home of fellow intellectual heavyweight Simone de Beauvoir.

He told a young AFP journalist, Francois de Closets -- who had been the first to break the news to him -- that he had no intention of accepting the honour. "I refuse the prize, that's a fact, but I must reserve my explanations for the Swedish press," the existentialist thinker said. At the time, AFP wrote that "the announcement of his selection by the jury in Stockholm did not seem to surprise him or provoke any emotion". Sartre's lengthy statement, detailing the reasons for his "non" to the Nobel -- read out to journalists at the French embassy in Stockholm later that day -- created a sensation as it was the first time in the prize's then 63-year history that someone had turned it down. However the decision was fully in keeping with his character and convictions, according to philosopher and Sartre expert Andre Guigot. "He had two basic genuine reasons. First of all he was afraid of being considered a spent force before completing his life's work. He called it the kiss of death," he said.

"And secondly, he had based his thinking on criticism of all institutions, which he considered suffocating." The only problem -- as Sartre soon discovered -- was that the Nobel regulations have no opt-out clause for laureates who refuse the prize. - 'Carved in stone' - "The Swedes were clear from the beginning. If Sartre refused the prize, it was no concern of the Academy. He had been selected and his name was going to be carved in stone," said Antoine Jacob, a former AFP reporter and author of "History of the Nobel Prizes". So the French writer remains officially the 1964 Nobel literature laureate, despite snubbing the traditional award ceremony, and leaving 273,000 Swedish kronor (worth nearly $380,000, 300,000 euros today) untouched. In his statement the author of the existential play "No Exit"(Huis Clos) with its iconic phrase "Hell is other people", said the decision was not a criticism of the Nobels.

He wrote that he had "always declined official honours", including the French Legion of Honour in 1945, as it would limit his independence and institutionalise him. "It would not be the same thing if I sign my name Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel laureate," he said. Even before the award became official, media speculation had mounted that Sartre was shortlisted for the prize. After a particularly optimistic forecast in the newspaper Le Figaro, he wrote directly to the Swedish Academy in an attempt to evade the impending award. "According to certain information that I have become aware of today, I would appear to have a certain chance of obtaining the Nobel prize," he wrote. "For both personal and other reasons of a more objective nature I do not wish to appear on the list of potential laureates. Be it in 1964 or later, I cannot, nor do I wish to, accept this honorary award." - 'Very bourgeois attitude' - It was no secret that Sartre, aged 59 at the time, was well placed to win the Nobel.

His autobiography "The Words" had come out in January that year, adding an intimate touch to his substantial output of plays, novels and philosophical works. Legend has it that his letter requesting to be spared the honour of a Nobel did not reach the academy's permanent secretary Anders Oesterling on time. But others have speculated that Sartre's name may have already been decided before the letter arrived. There is only one known case of a Nobel being refused in advance: Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt succeeded in persuading the members of the jury not to award him in 1919, but he had the unfair advantage of being a member of the jury himself. He later won the prize posthumously in 1931 at a time when death was not a barrier to becoming a laureate. But 50 years later the iconic French philosopher's Nobel snub is still controversial in some circles -- either seen as evidence of his strong convictions or his pride. "It's a subject that still provokes discussion today. Because ultimately it's a very bourgeois attitude to refuse a prize," said Sartre expert Guigot.

"Albert Camus, who came from a completely different (poorer) background accepted it, because he knew its value." The only other laureate to willingly refuse the Nobel was Vietnamese prime minister Le Duc Tho, who did not want to share the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Reblog Jean-Paul Sartre | French philosopher and author | Britannica.com French philosopher and author Tahar Ben Jelloun Jean-Paul Sartre, (born June 21, 1905, Paris , France —died April 15, 1980, Paris), French novelist, playwright, and exponent of Existentialism —a philosophy acclaiming the freedom of the individual human being. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, but he declined it. Jean-Paul Sartre, photograph by Gisèle Freund, 1968. Gisele Freund Early life and writings Sartre lost his father at an early age and grew up in the home of his maternal grandfather, Carl Schweitzer, uncle of the medical missionary Albert Schweitzer and himself professor of German at the Sorbonne.

The boy, who wandered in the Luxembourg Gardens of Paris in search of playmates, was small in stature and cross-eyed. His brilliant autobiography , Les Mots (1963; Words), narrates the adventures of the mother and child in the park as they went from group to group—in the vain hope of being accepted—then finally retreated to the sixth floor of their apartment “on the heights where (the) dreams dwell.” “The words” saved the child, and his interminable pages of writing were the escape from a world that had rejected him but that he would proceed to rebuild in his own fancy. Sartre went to the Lycée Henri IV in Paris and, later on, after the remarriage of his mother, to the lycée in La Rochelle . From there he went to the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, from which he was graduated in 1929. Sartre resisted what he called “bourgeois marriage,” but while still a student he formed with Simone de Beauvoir a union that remained a settled partnership in life.

Simone de Beauvoir’s memoirs, Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (1958; Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter ) and La Force de l’âge (1960; The Prime of Life), provide an intimate account of Sartre’s life from student years until his middle 50s. It was also at the École Normale Supérieure and at the Sorbonne that he met several persons who were destined to be writers of great fame; among these were Raymond Aron , Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Simone Weil , Emmanuel Mounier, Jean Hippolyte, and Claude Lévi-Strauss . From 1931 until 1945 Sartre taught in the lycées of Le Havre , Laon , and, finally, Paris. Twice this career was interrupted, once by a year of study in Berlin and the second time when Sartre was drafted in 1939 to serve in World War II . He was made prisoner in 1940 and released a year later. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros.

Folds Its Tent During his years of teaching in Le Havre, Sartre published La Nausée (1938; Nausea ), his first claim to fame. This novel , written in the form of a diary, narrates the feeling of revulsion that a certain Roquentin undergoes when confronted with the world of matter—not merely the world of other people but the very awareness of his own body. According to some critics, La Nausée must be viewed as a pathological case, a form of neurotic escape. Most probably it must be appreciated also as a most original, fiercely individualistic, antisocial piece of work, containing in its pages many of the philosophical themes that Sartre later developed.

Sartre took over the phenomenological method , which proposes careful, unprejudiced description rather than deduction, from the German philosopher Edmund Husserl and used it with great skill in three successive publications: L’Imagination (1936; Imagination: A Psychological Critique), Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions (1939; Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions), and L’Imaginaire: Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination (1940; The Psychology of Imagination). But it was above all in L’Être et le néant (1943; Being and Nothingness ) that Sartre revealed himself as a master of outstanding talent. Sartre places human consciousness , or no-thingness (néant), in opposition to being, or thingness (être). Consciousness is not-matter and by the same token escapes all determinism. The message, with all the implications it contains, is a hopeful one; yet the incessant reminder that human endeavour is and remains useless makes the book tragic as well. Post-World War II work Exploring France: Fact or Fiction?

Having written his defense of individual freedom and human dignity, Sartre turned his attention to the concept of social responsibility. For many years he had shown great concern for the poor and the disinherited of all kinds. While a teacher, he had refused to wear a tie, as if he could shed his social class with his tie and thus come closer to the worker. Freedom itself, which at times in his previous writings appeared to be a gratuitous activity that needed no particular aim or purpose to be of value, became a tool for human struggle in his brochure L’Existentialisme est un humanisme (1946; Existentialism and Humanism ). Freedom now implied social responsibility. In his novels and plays Sartre began to bring his ethical message to the world at large. He started a four-volume novel in 1945 under the title Les Chemins de la liberté, of which three were eventually written: L’Âge de raison (1945; The Age of Reason), Le Sursis (1945; The Reprieve), and La Mort dans l’âme (1949; Iron in the Soul, or Troubled Sleep).

After the publication of the third volume, Sartre changed his mind concerning the usefulness of the novel as a medium of communication and turned back to plays. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies What a writer must attempt, said Sartre, is to show man as he is. Nowhere is man more man than when he is in action, and this is exactly what drama portrays. He had already written in this medium during the war, and now one play followed another: Les Mouches (produced 1943; The Flies), Huis-clos (produced 1944, published 1945; In Camera, or No Exit), Les Mains sales (1948; Crime passionel, 1949; U.S. title, Dirty Hands; acting version, Red Gloves), Le Diable et le bon dieu (1951; Lucifer and the Lord), Nekrassov (1955), and Les Séquestrés d’Altona (1959; Loser Wins, or The Condemned of Altona).

All the plays, in their emphasis upon the raw hostility of man toward man, seem to be predominantly pessimistic; yet, according to Sartre’s own confession, their content does not exclude the possibility of a morality of salvation. Other publications of the same period include a book, Baudelaire (1947), a vaguely ethical study on the French writer and poet Jean Genet titled Saint Genet, comédien et martyr (1952; Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr), and innumerable articles that were published in Les Temps Modernes, the monthly review that Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir founded and edited. These articles were later collected in several volumes under the title Situations . Political activities After World War II, Sartre took an active interest in French political movements, and his leanings to the left became more pronounced. He became an outspoken admirer of the Soviet Union , although he did not become a member of the Communist Party. In 1954 he visited the Soviet Union, Scandinavia, Africa, the United States , and Cuba . Upon the entry of Soviet tanks into Budapest in 1956, however, Sartre’s hopes for communism were sadly crushed.

He wrote in Les Temps Modernes a long article, “ Le Fantôme de Staline,” that condemned both the Soviet intervention and the submission of the French Communist Party to the dictates of Moscow. Over the years this critical attitude opened the way to a form of “Sartrian Socialism” that would find its expression in a new major work, Critique de la raison dialectique (1960; Eng. trans., of the introduction only, under the title The Problem of Method; U.S. title, Search for a Method). Sartre set out to examine critically the Marxist dialectic and discovered that it was not livable in the Soviet form. Although he still believed that Marxism was the only philosophy for the current times, he conceded that it had become ossified and that, instead of adapting itself to particular situations, it compelled the particular to fit a predetermined universal. Whatever its fundamental, general principles, Marxism must learn to recognize the existential concrete circumstances that differ from one collectivity to another and to respect the individual freedom of man. The Critique, somewhat marred by poor construction, is in fact an impressive and beautiful book, deserving of more attention than it has gained so far. A projected second volume was abandoned.

Instead, Sartre prepared for publication Les Mots, for which he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature, an offer that was refused. Last years Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest From 1960 until 1971 most of Sartre’s attention went into the writing of a four-volume study called Flaubert. Two volumes with a total of some 2,130 pages appeared in the spring of 1971. This huge enterprise aimed at presenting the reader with a “total biography” of Gustave Flaubert , the famous French novelist, through the use of a double tool: on the one hand, Karl Marx’s concept of history and class and, on the other, Sigmund Freud’s illuminations of the dark recesses of the human soul through explorations into his childhood and family relations. Although at times Sartre’s genius comes through and his fecundity is truly unbelievable, the sheer volume of the work and the minutely detailed analysis of even the slightest Flaubertian dictum hamper full enjoyment.

As if he himself were saturated by the prodigal abundance of his writings, Sartre moved away from his desk during 1971 and did very little writing. Under the motto that “commitment is an act, not a word,” Sartre often went into the streets to participate in rioting, in the sale of left-wing literature , and in other activities that in his opinion were the way to promote “the revolution.” Paradoxically enough, this same radical Socialist published in 1972 the third volume of the work on Flaubert, L’Idiot de la famille, another book of such density that only the bourgeois intellectual can read it. Trending Topics Eyjafjallajökull volcano The enormous productivity of Sartre came herewith to a close. His mind, still alert and active, came through in interviews and in the writing of scripts for motion pictures. He also worked on a book of ethics . However, his was no longer the power of a genius in full productivity. Sartre became blind and his health deteriorated. In April 1980 he died of a lung tumour.

His very impressive funeral, attended by some 25,000 people, was reminiscent of the burial of Victor Hugo , but without the official recognition that his illustrious predecessor had received. Those who were there were ordinary people, those whose rights his pen had always defended.

Question: Which French writer refused the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature?
Answer: Jean Paul Sartre